


Not If It's You

by tinydooms



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: Cuddles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Trauma, talking about PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27187126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinydooms/pseuds/tinydooms
Summary: Evie leaped awake, sitting up with a cry in her own bed at home in the Zamalek house. Someone had switched on her bedside lamp, though she didn’t register it at first. Cold sweat soaked her pajamas and her heart felt as though it was about to leap out of her chest. Gasping, Evie rubbed her hands over her face, the image of Rick’s dead eyes and bloodied mouth still too close for comfort.
Relationships: Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40





	Not If It's You

**Not If It’s You**

_Cairo, November 1922_

_Evie lay across the altar, her left wrist still manacled, watching as the undead priests held Rick down. He struggled against them; he was strong, but they were stronger. Another approached, holding a stele in its bony hands and laughing. Evie screamed and thrashed; her legs were stuck, only one free from its chains. She couldn’t pivot and kick at the mummies, couldn’t save him._

_“No!” she screeched. “Rick!”_

_Rick struggled, reaching for his sword, but the mummy had closed in. It hefted the stele and let it fall. The enormous slab of stone landed hard on Rick’s torso; there was an awful crunch and Rick’s breath rushed out of him along with a stream of blood and gore, his eyes springing open in pain and horror. And then he died._

_Evie screamed and screamed, struggling against her bonds, thrashing. But Rick lay still on the stone floor, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, blue eyes sightless, dead._ Evie wailed-- _No, it didn’t happen like this!--_ Rick was dead, he was _dead,_ he was--

“Evie, wake up! Come on honey, it’ a bad dream, wake up--”

Evie leaped awake, sitting up with a cry in her own bed at home in the Zamalek house. Someone had switched on her bedside lamp, though she didn’t register it at first. Cold sweat soaked her pajamas and her heart felt as though it was about to leap out of her chest. Gasping, Evie rubbed her hands over her face, the image of Rick’s dead eyes and bloodied mouth still too close for comfort. 

A warm hand touched her shoulder; Rick’s hand, gently squeezing. 

“Easy, honey,” he said. “It was a nightmare. Are you awake?”

“Oh, god,” Evie said, and almost fell off the bed in her hurry to wrap her arms about him. 

Rick, kneeling beside the bed, caught her and pulled her into his lap, settling down on the mattress. Evie clung to him, her face in his neck, shivering. Rick was warm and solid and alive in her arms, his arms snug around her, one big hand stroking her hair as he rocked her. 

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “Whatever you dreamed, it’s not real. You’re safe. It’s okay.”

Evie nodded. She felt vaguely silly, clinging to him like a child, not a grown-up woman of twenty-five, but she didn’t let him go. Instead, she breathed in his new-familiar scent and tried to relax.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered at last, raising her face from his neck. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Rick replied. “I was coming back from the bathroom and heard you crying. Do you...do you want to talk about it?” 

Evie rubbed her hands over her face. “I feel a little sheepish. I dreamed of...of Hamunaptra.” 

Rick nodded, waiting, and after a moment Evie pressed on. 

“I dreamed that you were fighting the priests, his priests; they knocked you down and held you and--” she hesitated and Rick squeezed her hand. “And they killed you. They dropped a stele on you and you died, and I could do nothing to save you.”

An odd look passed over Rick’s face. He bit his lip and nodded. “That’s not unusual, dreaming that you can’t save your companions--”

“Not just my companions,” Evie said. “ _You._ They killed _you_ and I couldn’t bear it--I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. 

In the dim lamplight, Rick blushed, color washing over his face. Evie was so surprised that for a moment she forgot her own sorrow and reached to touch his cheek. 

“Is that so unusual to you?”

Rick flashed her a tiny sideways smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to being…”

“Cared for?” Evie supplied when he hesitated. 

“Loved,” Rick replied. 

Evie sat back and looked at him. In the handful of weeks since their return from Hamunaptra, Rick had become indispensable to her, a quiet, steady presence both in her home and at her library. Kind, dependable, funny, she loved him more than she would ever have imagined she could love anyone. It had never occurred to her that maybe this was all new to him, as well. Rick, watching her, felt his stomach clench. 

“Have you never been loved before?” Evie said at last, and at least her own nightmare seemed to be forgotten. 

“I--no. Not like this.”

Who on earth would have loved him these last few years, when his hands were filthy with war and his life in shambles? Evie’s face was a study; she looked bewildered. Rick rubbed the back of his neck again, embarrassed. 

“I was...in a bad place after my last battle. A real bad place. I’d had a bad couple of years even before the War, and then they made me join the Legion and sent me to Gallipoli, and I just kind of stopped being a person, if that makes sense. It was easier to be a soldier, to live one moment at a time. And afterwards, I just fell apart; I could barely live one day to the next and I didn’t--there isn’t room for any kind of relationship when you’re in that kind of place. I didn’t want to burden anyone.” 

Admittedly, Rick had had the occasional willing partner before he had broken down completely, but he had known better than to lean on any of them. He had been alone for so long, he had stopped even hoping that it would change. But here was Evelyn; she had dreamed about him, had been so disturbed by his imagined death that she had screamed herself awake. Evelyn, who smiled whenever she saw him, and kissed him, and was his friend as well as the girl of his dreams. And he was _so afraid_ of losing her, of scaring her off. 

“You’re not a burden,” Evie said, shaking her head. “People need to lean on each other; it’s in our nature. And I _know_ it’s stupid to dream about Hamunaptra, especially since it was a mistake of my own making. It’s not a real horror, like what you and Jonathan went through in the War.”

Rick stared at her. “Evie, it’s not a competition. Hamunaptra was a fight for our lives, and it wasn’t any less scary than the War.”

Evie thought of Jonathan, haunting the corridors of their English house at night, afraid to sleep because of the nightmares, of waking Rick up the other night and seeing the tears wetting his lashes. She looked at Rick’s hand wrapped around her own and back at his face. 

“Will you stay with me? I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Yes, if you want,” Rick said, trying to ignore the way his heart was racing. _Sleep_ , they were going to sleep, not... _just stop right there, O’Connell._

Rick stood and shook out the blankets as Evie punched the pillows into shape. Watching him, Evie was once again struck by the oddity of him, this big strong man who was so soft and gentle with her. Rick had told her a little about his life before the War, how he had been raised by a single mother and then unceremoniously dumped in an orphanage when she died. And now there was the admission that he had fallen apart after the War. He had had a hard life so far--how was it that he was so loving?

“May I ask you a question?” Evie asked as Rick slipped into bed beside her. 

“Of course.”

Evie curled into his side, twining herself around him with one arm around his chest and her foot on his. “Where did you learn to take care of people?”

She felt Rick smile into her hair. “My mom. And then later at the orphanage. I was this big tall kid and the smaller kids looked to me to protect them from bullies.” He shifted, settling into the bed, and began to stroke Evie’s hair. “I knew how I wanted to be treated. I was so homesick, you know? I was just a kid myself. I wanted my mom and it seemed the best way to deal with it all was to look out for the others, to try to help them feel a little better.”

“And who looked after you?”

For a long moment, Rick was silent. “Nobody looked after me.”

There it was again, that sense of loneliness that she often got from him when he talked about his past. Evie squeezed him, trying to put a lot of unsaid things into her embrace. 

“There’s a Greek play,” she said. “I can’t remember who wrote it at the moment, but there’s a pair of lovers and one of them is going through a rotten time, and he says to the other that he can’t imagine why they would love him enough to stick with him. He says, ‘it’s rotten work’, and the other replies, “Not to me. Not if it’s you.’ Do you understand?”

Rick nodded and rested his forehead against hers. For a long moment they leaned against each other, and it should have been weird, breathing in each others’ faces like that, but instead it was only wonderful. Rick kissed her cheek. He wanted to stay here with her, like this, forever. 

They sank back towards sleep together, snugged together under the blankets, and this was medicine to both of them. This was safety; this was home. They would support each other for the rest of their lives. 

Author's Note: this was a months' old prompt that I had on Tumblr, one that I couldn't originally think of a response to but liked well enough to keep. It's also a companion piece to [Perchance to Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23856358), which is reference here. I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know and as always, thanks for reading!


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